The five crucial things successful CX companies do every day

> Most successful CX companies do these things to lift their game
> Steve Towers shares the winning strategies
> Model your own strategy based on leading CX next practices
This article is a build on terrific feedback from my recent piece ‘5 Critical Failures of 80% of Customer Experience initiatives’.
(You can see that here: https://bit.ly/CX5Results)

George Bernard Shaws observation is pertinent

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”

So with that in mind, let’s move beyond the mistakes and uncover the winning strategies and how best we can implement those insightful approaches.
Based on our recent work and research my report from the CX front line should help you rethink your approach in our collective endeavor to get more scientific about the customer experience.
In the earlier article, we identified five major errors and causes of failure. Let’s review how winning CX companies reframe those into successful strategies.
1. Top teams understand CX success and get out of the way of their people to let them get on with it.
To achieve strategic CX success, it is necessary to understand the limitations imposed by industrial-age thinking (getting better at doing the wrong stuff faster, functional specialisms, outdated reward systems) and help the organization migrate to Outside-In thinking and practices. At Zappos, for instance, it is more important to meet the customer (see Zappos hits the road.. http://bit.ly/Zappos2017), gather insights, and provide input to reshape the organization. The top team is actually out there “We want to shake the customers hands, give them really big high fives and meet their friends — delivering happiness and memorable experiences along the way,” said Kristin Richmer, Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Zappos.
The task then is not overlaying the new insights onto an industrial age siloed world. It is actually to reshape the organization, its people, the reward systems, processes and systems to better deliver successful customer outcomes. Tony Hsieh reinforces this feed-forward approach “we actually want to talk with customers more as 70% of our business are repeat buys. Hiding our contact details and making it difficult to talk is not our way” http://bit.ly/TonyHseih
2. Customer needs are understood and developed to create the organizational alignment towards successful customer outcomes.
Leading CX Companies have developed an a-b-c strategy when boiled down includes
(a) stop asking customers what they want
(b) get your head around current customer expectations, and
(c) articulate customer needs even when the customer doesn’t know what they are.
This effort is not a ‘one and done’, it is about continual learning and then the development of services and products that anticipate customer needs rather than following the outdated mantra of those organizations seeking more and more (often meaningless) feedback.
And Disney provides a demonstration of this a-b-c approach.
Consider this:

Disney World Orlando, is about 43 square miles, about twice the size of Manhattan. 30 million guests per year enjoy 4 theme parks: the Magic Kingdom, the Hollywood Studios, Epcot and the Animal Kingdom.

You can navigate to these parks by car, bus, monorail, boats and a ferry depending on your hotel – and that in itself includes over 20 themed for your delight. Coupled with Disneys new wearable “Magic Bands” (see http://bit.ly/MagicBand) you receive a smooth personalized experience where ever you are.
This collection of entertainment is a dynamic living system focused on successful customer outcomes. With digital real-time feedback, Disney offers an integrated experience built around a co-ordinated set of business and customer outcomes, from the time you think of a trip, to the time you are back home with the kids.
3. Being customer-centric isn’t about projects – it is a state of mind.
A great mistake of many is approaching customer experience as an initiative, something with a clearly defined start and end point. Appreciating CX is a state of mind for the whole company is a major differentiator and allows successful organizations to continually tweak and evolve, rather than live in a permanent state of project stop-start crisis. The guiding principle is, at the heart of CX, change is desirable, welcomed and systematic. It impacts everyone and everything all the time.
4. Successful CX transcends measures and implements a rigorous feedback/feed forward framework.
A recent analysis in the banking industry suggested that more than 85% of the total key performance indicators measured outputs – things that get produced from activities.
Successful CX companies however have a very different profile and focus, their attention is on measuring outcomes – the result of what is produced. To these companies this is not a semantic distinction, it underpins the total CX strategy. As a result, the measurement systems are simplified, and the focus on results rather than activity moves the dial towards customer centricity so much more quickly. Programs such as Disneys True North set a direction with supporting metrics, and rather than measure everything that moves they focus on the results and outcomes that need to be delivered to achieve successful customer outcomes. In this context, more than 75% of measures are ‘Outcomes’ with less than 25% outputs.
Test this for yourself in the call center. What are your top ten measurements, are they output-oriented or outcome-based? The former would be things like average handle time, abandon rates, downtime and so on. The latter would be the delivery of customer need, queries completely resolved (not the piece mean partial interim ‘first call resolution’ type things measured with a functional bias).
In summary, CX leaders have fewer measures and the majority are now Outcome-based.
5. CX is both the strategy and the operational objective to overcome needless complexity.
A recent Forrester survey says 81% of CX professionals are mapping experiences from the customer’s perspective, but only 21% are mapping the ecosystem (processes, people, technology). In this context there are two opportunities that successful CX companies exploit:
i. CX can only be successful if you build a complete CX ecosystem map (we call that a CXecomap) which includes cause and effect and connects the people who deliver the customer experience with those people and systems who provide the means for it.
ii. CX Current state crisis. Successful CX companies can clearly articulate the what and how the organization should be doing to deliver great experiences. They do not become mired in the exercise of mapping all the current external and internal processes and systems (which can take years to complete and provides little in the way of direction for what should exist.)
These companies understand the reality that the current structure and systems were never created with excellent CX in mind but were in fact designed around an industrial age, production system based model. Accordingly, next practice is to utilize design principles that envision what should be, and then progressively mature and migrate the organization to that vision.
To conclude CX success doesn’t come from wishful thinking. It is a deliberate and sustained effort to understand and articulate the ever changing customer. To build a new trust with them that goes beyond the platitudes of the past. In the near term it is about becoming more scientific about the customer experience. In the longer term it is a guarantee of business success.
We have codified these CX next practice approaches into the CEMMethod (now version10). You can access that as a resource with others below.
The earlier article can be viewed here: ‘5 Critical Failures of 80% of Customer Experience initiatives’. http://bit.ly/CX2017
Other useful resources on this theme:www.bpgroup.org (workshops, accreditation, and certification)www.stevebtowers.com
www.successfulcustomeroutcomes.net (blog for all things customer experience)
www.cemmethod.com (CEMMethod v10)
www.outsideinthesecret.com (Free copy of ‘Outside-In. The Secret’)
Join us to learn the Secrets of Apples, Googles, Zara, Zappos and Emirates success

Accredited CX Professional, Masters & Champions (ACXP, ACXM, ACXC) Program

An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 180 times, in 64 cities with delegates from 118 countries.
The program, now in its eleventh year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
 
Become a qualified CPP-Master or ACXP and demonstrate your professionalism http://www.bpgroup.org/training.html

The Customer Feedback CONSPIRACY

Of course, you are asking for customer feedback. Yes?

 

Opps, sorry, that is one of the dumbest things you can do.  Don’t take my word for it – watch this amusing video with James Dodkins keynoting at the recent Lean Six Sigma conference in Iceland. ‘The Customer Feedback Conspiracy”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iSJ-B8VZ4M?feature=player_embedded]
 
 
 
Join us to learn the Secrets of Apples, Googles, Zara, Zappos and Emirates success

Certified Process Professional Masters Champions (CPP-Master) Program (and ACXP)

 
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 270 times, in 119 cities with delegates from 132 countries.
The program, now in its sixteenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
 
Become a qualified CPP-Master or Accredited Customer Experience Professional (ACXP) and validate your professionalism
http://www.bpgroup.org/training.html
 
 

Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

CX Rockstar James Dodkins interviews Joseph Michelli – driven to delight?

Three fundamental building blocks for CX Excellence – Employee Experience

Three excellent mini videos from best selling author and Rockstar.cx founder James Dodkins that really frame current thinking around #CX and its key component the Employee Experience #EX.

With insights from Shep Hyken, Disney and Zappos go grab a coffee and enjoy a 10-minute break and look through the lens of Customer Experience Excellence.

Customer Trust = Employee Pride

 

Disney EVP, Lee Cockerell

 We are all Leaders

CX Guru, Shep Hyken

No Call Centres at Zappos

Zappos CX Leader, John Wolske

Further resources:

Turning the advice into action: BPG training page
More videos/podcasts on this theme: Rockstar.cx
CX Excellence Coaches: link to coaches

You can see this and more over at www.cxobsession.com

 

 

 

Stop trying to fix the Customer Experience!!

What significantly differentiates the top dogs in terms of business results? How can Amazon, Zara, Zappos and Emirates consistently outperform their competitors? 

Connecting better

You and I as consumers connect better with those companies who have a focus on delivering Successful Customer Outcomes, however, that doesn’t immediately come about through wishful thinking, re-engineering processes or investing in the latest bright shiny technologies. No, these successful organizations have a different strategy…. And that strategy understands a fundamental truth across every part of the enterprise. Without the employee ‘getting it’ you waste your time banging the drum about improving the Customer Experience and at best you will achieve a Hawthorne effect[1], where results are fleetingly better then reverting back to sometimes even worse than before.

And so, enter stage left the Employee Experience.

Great, got it! We invest in employee’s emotional well-being and we can then deliver great CX. Wrong again. Emotions are an effect created by the circumstances the employee finds themselves in. Imagine a draconian boss, poor lighting and awful colleagues.

Not too much of a surprise that employees will then have low morale, high absence rates, and short tenures before finding something better. Making them feel better by changing the boss, improving work conditions and encouraging teaminess may produce a short-term fleeting benefit however we are soon back to square one. Why is this?

Elegant simplicity

Amazingly the answer to this catch 22 has been there all along. It is so obvious calling it common sense way understates its importance. The elegant simplicity confuses those who believe we should just improve what we already do, or invest heavily in digital, or run team building motivational workshops.

And this isn’t a secret sauce – three simple steps will get you there…

  1. Understand what success looks like for the customer
  2. Create measures of those Needs and Expectations
  3. Align and Reward employees to deliver those Needs and Expectations – without exception

And as if by magic, morale improves, employees become adept at dealing with any situation (without the need to go ‘upstairs’), customers are delighted and results, measured through costs, service and revenue dramatically improve. Sure, you can go measure the emotional employee impact (we are all happier!) but also remember that is a consequence of doing the right things first. And if you have to measure the employee emotions to tell you things aren’t working you are not understanding your customers well enough.

>> Watch Richard Branson, CEO Virgin Group discuss this topic here.

>> Watch Zappos and Disney SVP’s discuss Employee Experience with James Dodkins. Also, access his new book “Put your customers second” – he is offering three free chapters!

>> Join us at an upcoming training to understand and make your own the approaches that work immediately.

 

[1] The Hawthorne Effect: Wikipedia

Going behind the ‘green line’ at Disney

Rockstar.cx (James Dodkins) takes us behind the green line at Disney with Disney EVP Lee Cockerell

Join us to find out more of the Outside-In and Customer Centric approaches and techniques at http://www.bpgroup.org/training.html at a session in New York, Washington DC, Denver, London, Dubai, Johannesburg, Sydney in the next 90 days.
See you all there!

We are all leaders in Customer Experience!! That must be true Shep Hyken told us so :)

Three minutes of insight to conjure with…

ROCKSTAR CX LIVE – James Dodkins and Shep Hyken talk about the why’s and how’s of amazing customer experience leadership.

Watch the full ROCKSTAR CX episode here: https://www.facebook.com/JDODKINS/vid…

Get in touch with our rockstar guest Shep Hyken!

Website: www.hyken.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hyken

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShepHykenSpe…
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shephyken/

ACXM Training Orlando 26th March:
for CX improvement consultancy and training, customer-centric culture transformation, the ultimate rockstar team building experience and rockstar keynote speakers.

Get in touch with James:
Email: james@jamesdodkins.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jdodkins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdodk…
Facebook: http://bit.ly/jamesdodkinsfb
CX Discussion Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/fbcxgroup
Website: www.jamesdodkins.com

#cx #custexp #rockstarcx #leadership #live #fblive #jamesdodkins #shephyken

FOUR fundamental questions regarding CX and Outside-In?

Interviewed by Rockstar.cx on the theme of Outside-In.
Here a few 2-3 minute chunks- do feel free to download and share, oh and sign-up for Rockstar.cx cos I know there are some excellent interviews coming up, the most recent with ex Zappos evangelist, Jon Wolske.

 

What and
Who is
Outside-In?
What do
Outside-In
companies do
differently?
Where to start
with Outside-In
How to turn a
Failing
project
Outside-In

If you are more patient than me you can review the full Outside-In interview over at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjQsYFVXAKk

Cheers,

PS. Updated the www.stevetowers.com portal – go have a look…

What is & Who is Outside-In? (interview by James Dodkins)

Two-minute bite-sized chunk provides the answer.